If there’s a city council meeting in August, then you know that it has to be a pretty big deal. Picking up almost literally where we left off at the last meeting of council a few weeks ago, councillors and senior staff took a few minutes out of their summer vacation to approve the funding for the Kindle Communities supportive housing project on Shelldale. In other words, process wins! Here’s the recap… Continue reading “This Week in Council: A Kindle Plan”
It was supposed to be the last council meeting before the usual August break, but the events of this week’s regular meeting of council did something unusual: It ended with a cliffhanger. The door was opened to a potential August meeting for a matter involving supportive housing and the raising the money to cover it. It terms of the business settled at the meeting itself, but there were also a few complications there too. Here’s the recap… Continue reading “This Week at Council: Housing Request Opens Door to August Meeting”
This week at city council was all about the development charges. First, council heard the story of D.C.s, what they pay for and why they’re collected, and then they looked to the future. The DC Background Study, the means by which the new DCs are determined, got thrown a curveball with all the recent legislative changes, but the work still got done and the second part of this week’s meeting was the direct result of that. Here’s the recap… Continue reading “This Week at Council: D.C. Comments”
It’s been a couple of months since we’ve had something really juicy at a planning meeting to chew on, and boy was there ever something juicy at this planning meeting. Everyone’s favourite proposed student development was back at council again for the planning meeting, and after that, there was a council workshop that promised to be the first of many steps that will help council get their heads around the housing crisis. Continue reading “This Week at Council: Planning and Housing 101”
Some committees take the summer off, but Committee of the Whole is still in session, at least for July anyway. Committee this month dealt with a number of complex issues including the new version of the City’s Strategic Plan, the new version of the Seasonal Patio program, new bylaw reviews that need to be conducted, and a new bylaw for the use of e-scooters. So what final decisions were made? Let’s check out the recap… Continue reading “This Week at Council – Bars, Bylaws, and Bicycles”
What was supposed to be a rather unexceptional week at council turned out to be very busy indeed, and it really had nothing to do with what city council was working on. Upset about the Ontario government’s decision to grant Strong Mayor powers to most heads of council in the province’s biggest cities, several delegates came out to let council know it, but it turned out even staff have problems with the implementation. Here’s the recap. Continue reading “This Week at Council: Strong Mayor Blowback”
This was a busy week at city council and it was four meetings long. There was the usual planning meeting, which went by in a way that was largely free of controversy. Less than 24 hours later, council got together again for a triple header, first to receive the audited financial statements from the last fiscal year, and then back-to-back shareholder meetings about energy and trains respectively. Continue reading “This Week at Council: Planning and Shareholding in Four Parts”
It was a long afternoon and evening in June at Committee of the Whole. After a couple of months with some shorter agendas, it seemed like everything came home to roost this month with a massive agenda under the Governance service area including procedural updates, the Strategic Plan annual report and the last (?) you’ll hear from the Smart Cities Office. Also, there’s a lot of work coming soon in Downtown Guelph. Let’s recap! Continue reading “This Week at Council: Non-Stop Governance and Downtown’s Future”
This week, there back-to-back council meetings, and one of them looked bigger than normal in terms of the number of people around the horseshoe, which was really more like a round table. A joint meeting of Guelph City Council and Wellington County Council was held to talk about the issues facing paramedics, while Guelph council on it’s own had to deal with a matter of funding more police downtown. Continue reading “This Week at Council: Police Money and Paramedic Needs”
It was a quiet week at city council, which is ironic because the subject matter of the workshop this week was all about communications. Council covered the various aspects of how the City communicates information and how they encourage Guelphites to communicate back to them. Also, how does community investment in Guelph work? That and many other questions will be answered in this week’s recap. Continue reading “This Week at Council: Talking About Communicating”
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